And notes, and notes, and notes. You always knew she had a memo pad in there, her pencil scratching away from a chair beside you. She used those little golf pencils, stubby as pinkie fingers. Why would you have thought to check what she was writing? You never asked to see the bills from the insurance, the emails she wrote when you missed school for a doctor’s appointment, you didn’t know your own Social Security number—there was a parental infrastructure, which you could count on like you count on the water to come out of the tap.

* * *

Three hours of Maura sullen on your faded office couch and demanding to play with your phone is quite enough. You skip out on your lunch hour to take her home. The noonday sun is pouring hot through your car windows, and you’re tasting an apology to your boss because you know you’re not going to make it back on time. You never do. Maura looks up from where she’s lolling her head against the window and says, “She published a book.”

You ease on the brake as you hit a red light, only look over at Maura once the car is stopped. She’s leaning her forehead against the glass again, probably smudging it. “What?”

“Mom. She published an essay collection.”

There goes your stomach, bottom dropped out. Like the feeling you get whenever your mother texts you. Every time, the stomach, and then a rush of cold from your fingertips up through your shoulders down into your rib cage. “When?”

Maura turns and looks at you, finally. God, were your eyes that big when you were younger? Are they still? Maybe she isn’t quite thirteen. Her eyes are big as moons. “You didn’t know?”

You don’t know if she’s making fun of you or if she’s really surprised. Try not to ask whether Maura knows what she is, if she is anything. Someone behind you lays on the horn.

* * *